A pair of leading Senate Republicans joined an Assembly Democratic effort to separate mandatory state exams from teacher evaluations.

“Testing should not be the Holy Grail of our educational system but just one measurement,” Saratoga and Schenectady county Republican Sen. Jim Tedisco said recently, with the filing of a bill that he is sponsoring with Long Island's Carl Marcellino to disallow the use of statewide student exam results in teacher performance reviews.

“It’s time we close the book on the era of over-testing and stop the testing madness once and for all,” added Tedisco who is a former special education teacher, guidance counselor and coach.

If passed and signed into law, that would mean that the state math and English tests given in Grades 3-8 and the high school Regents exams, wouldn’t be used as part of teacher performance evaluations.

There’s no guarantee that will happen though. While the Assembly is almost sure to pass the measure, it could be dicier with the Senate, where some Republicans have had what one observer called a “complicated” relationship with the state’s major teachers union, New York State United Teachers, which is squarely behind the measure. NYSUT has long been very close with Assembly Democrats, but has in past years been at odds with Senate Republicans who have backed items antithetical to the union such as parochial and private school tax credits.

The measure comes after a tumultuous period dating back to 2015 ago when Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the existing teacher evaluation system was “baloney.”

He noted at the time that the 2013-14 evaluations found 99 percent of teachers to be effective while only 38 percent of graduating students were career or college ready.

Cuomo then pushed through a proposal in which student test scores would count for up to 50 percent of a teacher’s annual performance evaluation.

That sparked a statewide revolt by teachers as well as some parents who complained that their children were being over-tested.

Cuomo backed off his push and the plan was then put under a moratorium until 2019.

News of the Senate and Assembly bills was greeted enthusiastically by the union, with NYSUT President Andy Pallotta saying that “a dark cloud” had been lifted.

Not everyone was thrilled, though.

"Teacher evaluation should be a tool to identify our strongest educators as well as those who need additional support. To be meaningful, it must include whether students are achieving academic growth, among multiple measures,” Ian Rosenblum, executive director of the Education Trust-NY, said in a prepared statement following the Assembly bill’s introduction.

“The current effort to permanently undermine New York’s teacher evaluation system takes us backwards,” added Rosenblum, whose group works to raise academic achievement among underprivileged youth.

And while stressing that his group doesn’t comment on pending legislation, Brian Fritsch, deputy executive director of High Achievement NY, said some objective measurement is needed for evaluations.

"Teacher evaluations need an objective, universal and statewide measurement as a piece of the puzzle, and the 3-8 assessments are currently the only exam that meets that criteria,” Fritsch said in a prepared statement.

“Without it, equality and fairness are put at risk because it becomes more difficult to compare evaluations across district lines, and have an objective way to identify and close achievement gaps."

The move to un-tether the tests from evaluations comes as the State Education Department is reviewing the system and gathering input for a revised evaluation system. The proposed legislation would allow schools to design or choose their own exams that could be used in evaluations.

This is also coming amid a fierce Democratic primary challenge to Cuomo from Cynthia Nixon.

That fight has played itself out on in several ways. Hours before the Assembly offered its bill in late April, for instance, Nixon called for scrapping the test-based system, which she said was Cuomo’s idea.

The Cuomo camp pushed back, saying they had been working for months on the un-tethering plan.

Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Cuomo gubernatorial campaign Tweeted: “This legislation was weeks in the making, she (Nixon) knew that, and now she's trying to claim credit where none is due.”

Both Cuomo and Nixon are competing for crucial union support in the upcoming fall primary, and testing is a major issue for NYSUT members who would be directly impacted.

Cuomo earlier in the year consolidated support from several large private sector unions but Nixon has been wooing NYSUT, one of the largest labor organizations in the state. She has set up an “Educators for Cynthia” group.

Cuomo, on the other hand, has the power to either push through or veto the Senate/Assembly bill.

Rick Karlin covers education. A reformed ski bum, he has previously covered the Capitol, consumer affairs and features at the Times Union.

Before working at the Times Union, he worked at newspapers in Maine, where he covered the state Capitol, and Colorado, where he covered the energy industry and natural resource issues as well as government beats.